The Unusually Cooperative Demon in the ME's Office
by Lucillia
Summary: The first unofficial rule in the NYPD is: Do not invoke the potential wrath of the Riverman.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello, my name is Doctor Henry Morgan, and I've been immortal since some utter asshole shot me and tossed me off my daddy's slave ship two hundred years ago. What I mean by immortal is that when I die, it doesn't stick. Every time I get shot, run over, kicked in the head by a horse, trip over a railing and fall into an industrial sized vat of boiling peppermint and so on and so forth, I wake up stark naked in a nearby body of water despite the fact that my clothes and everything that I happened to be carrying in my pockets at the time mysteriously vanish from the scene of my death along with me. Usually, I wake up in a lake, river, or even the ocean, but in a city of nearly eight and a half million souls, I have been known to wake up in the sewer system during times of particularly high water usage, and have been known to wake up in the storm sewers during periods of heavy rain. Despite the fact that I have the life expectancy of a snowball in hell here and it is only a matter of time before there is a montage of the many deaths of that weird guy who keeps swimming in the East River naked posted on Youtube, I have made my home in New York where I have managed to finagle a supervisory position in the Medical Examiner's office despite my forged documentation, my two-hundred year long rap sheet which includes over seven-hundred public indecency charges, and the fact that I'm a registered sex offender in three states._

_When you want to study death so you don't have to live after an incident like the one in 1857, you go where the dead guys are. At least in theory, it makes sense. Well, if you've tried just about every other method and are just grasping at straws like I am..._

His customary mental monologue which he goes through every Tuesday for some strange reason over, Dr. Henry Morgan got down to business and started cutting into a corpse despite the fact that a simple external examination had rendered Suicide as the cause of death, making an autopsy completely unnecessary.

**Elsewhere:**

Two officers were slowly strolling along the East River on foot patrol. One older, and the other obviously fresh out of the Police Academy.

"And finally, I'll tell you what my first partner told me on my first day on the job, and his first partner told him, and his first partner told him going back until God only knows when" the older officer who was instructing the younger said. "If you see a six foot tall white male between the ages of thirty-five and forty with short curly brown hair and brown eyes crawl out of the river naked, pretend you don't know what's going on."

"Why?" the younger officer asked looking as if he thought what his partner said was a particularly unfunny joke.

"He's been doing that for at least two centuries, and we don't want to find out what else he's capable of the hard way." the first officer replied. "As long as the good doctor thinks we don't know..."

"Seriously?!" the younger officer said. "You seriously expect me to believe that the old urban legend about the Riverman is real, and that..."

SPLASH!

Splashsplashsplashsplashsplashsplashsplash!

"Bloody rocks! Damn railing!... $%$#%&amp;##$ ^%^ Bicycle Messenger! May he catch the pox and die a most unsightly death! I only get about ten minutes for lunch, and...Oh, hello officers, I was just..."

"Going for another sleep swim doctor?" the first officer said as the Doctor assumed the position and allowed the younger to cuff him.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I was." Dr. Henry Morgan replied.

"I suggest you avoid taking afternoon naps in the future." the first officer said as he helped the second haul the Medical Examiner into a cruiser that had arrived despite the fact that neither man had radioed in to summon it. This happened so often that the local precinct had the routine down pat and sent someone out the second the first call about a naked guy in the East River came in.

Once the good doctor Morgan was in the cruiser and on his way to the nearby station with a minimum of fuss and a minimum of disturbance to the nearby tourists, the younger officer turned to the first.

"So, are the alligators real too?" the second asked, looking slightly shaken.

"No." the first said. "But the monster goldfish that got fished out in the '30s was."

The two officers turned back to their patrol, the second looking as if his entire world had been turned upside-down.

"I hear they recently teamed the Riverman up with the only officer on the force who doesn't know it's him." the first said, trying to draw the younger out of whatever corner he'd mentally curled up in.


	2. Chapter 2

The young officer gulped._** He **_was here. _**He **_was here in the station and not downstairs using _**His **_fell powers to determine how the latest unfortunate soul to end up on _**His **_slab had met their demise.

_**He **_said that it was _**His**_ medical training and_** His **_experience as a gravedigger of all things that had given_** Him **_his uncanny ability to determine cause of death, but it was unnatural how _**He**_ could spot a murder that even the most experienced M.E.s missed, and _**He **__was right all of the time..._

_Nobody was right all of the time. Nobody but __**Him**__..._

But, then again, _**He **_wasn't human.

He knew, because his grandfather had told him the story of how he'd hauled the Riverman out of the East River in the Fifties. The old man even had a copy of the booking photo they'd snapped back then. About the only thing that had changed with the Riverman since then was his hair and clothing.

As he stood, amazed at the bravery of Lieutenant Reece and Detective Martinez who were actually using the Riverman to solve cases, something happened to cause his heart to nearly stop. The Riverman had looked_ straight at him!_

Before he could look away, his eyes met those of "Doctor Henry Morgan". They looked surprisingly human considering...

His older brother had told him that the Riverman ate souls, and would eat the souls of those who looked directly into his eyes unless the intended victim presented an offering with which to appease him.

What to appease the Riverman with though? What was his soul worth? Could he trade one of the criminals in holding...Or...?

_"I could literally kill for a good cup of tea!"_

_**He**_ could...The Riverman could literally kill for...

He was saved! All he had to do was make a cup of tea that met _**His **_approval.

But how?

Something told him that the Riverman wouldn't just want any old cup of tea made out of a bag from the breakroom with a couple of packets of sugar tossed in.

Pulling out his smartphone, he started frantically running searches for how to make a proper cup of tea. Several searches later, he had the basics, as well as the names of a number of stores in the city where he could get the supplies he needed.

It would be expensive, very expensive, more than a week's worth of pay expensive, but...

Three hours later, the young officer's heart felt like it was trying to escape from his chest as he made his way through the morgue and towards the office which had been given entirely over to the Riverman despite such space being at a premium and usually shared between all of the shift supervisors. The fact that the Riverman had a supervisory position despite his "youth" and academic credentials which didn't include any major universities spoke volumes.

The young officer carefully held the thermos he'd brought with him, doing everything he could to keep his hands from shaking. He had considered getting and bringing an entire tea service, but the Riverman tended to react poorly to such offerings, preferring to pretend to be "Normal", so he'd opted for a thermos that had been advertised to keep hot beverages hot for hours._** He **_hadn't killed anyone who had gone above and beyond when trying to appease _**Him, **_but the dark looks those who'd "gone too far" had gotten and the fact that almost everyone who displeased_** Him **_suffered misfortunes shortly afterward instilled fear in all who knew _**Him**_.

After a walk that seemed like an eternity, he walked up to the glass fronted door of the Riverman's office and debated knocking, since the Riverman appeared to be busy with paperwork. Before he could work up his nerve, the Riverman looked up and straight at him.

"Yes?" _**He**_ asked expectantly.

"I heard earlier that you wanted a good cup of tea, and since I'd recently been to that teashop a few blocks from my apartment, I thought I'd..." The officer started, hoping he hadn't failed in his mission, especially since the tea he'd specially made was probably going off or something, considering the fact that a proper English tea wasn't supposed to be kept in a thermos. The teashop wasn't anywhere near his apartment, but the Riverman didn't need to know that.

Being careful to not show any fear, he stepped foot in the Riverman's office, walked to _**His**_ desk, and set the thermos down. The Riverman reached over and grabbed the offering, twisted open the thermos, and took a whiff of the the still steaming contents.

"Thank you." The Riverman said, looking and sounding genuinely happy at the offering.

"You're welcome." the young officer said, glad that his offering had apparently been accepted, and that he'd be able to keep his soul one more day.

"I'm afraid I'm rather busy so, if you don't mind..." the Riverman said, gesturing to the paperwork piled on_** His **_desk.

Realizing that he'd been dismissed, the young officer turned towards the door, trying not to seem as if he were in too much of a hurry to leave and wondering how many prayers he would have to say to atone for making an offering for, and giving an offering to a demon.

In his office, Dr. Henry Morgan once more sniffed the tea in the thermos that the young officer he'd occasionally seen wandering around the department when he went over there to help Jo solve a case had given him. It was a rather expensive blend that he rarely indulged in, and he wondered how the young man had been able to afford it on his salary since he could barely afford it on the wages he got from the city.

Either way, he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.


End file.
